AUSTIN — A flurry of ethics bills that never reached Gov. Greg Abbott's desk in 2015 were resurrected Wednesday by lawmakers who want to try again to beef up financial disclosures, penalize criminal lawmakers and crack down on lobbyists' gimmicks.

Sen. Van Taylor and Rep. Charlie Geren, both North Texas Republicans, are leading the charge and hedging their bets this time. They're each filing large bills in their chambers, along with smaller bills dedicated to specific actions outlined in the larger bills. That scattershot approach increases the likelihood that at least some of the new regulations will touch the governor's pen.

"There is no sugarcoating the last session's failures," said Taylor, of Plano.

"There is no excuse to cheat the voters out of meaningful ethics reforms, so we should get this done," he added.

The package as a whole stands to be a significant disinfectant because it revokes pensions from criminal lawmakers, restricts lawmakers from leaving office and immediately returning to the Capitol as lobbyists, and targets well-known loopholes that lobbyists use to wine and dine officials in secret.

Yet there's nothing new in this iteration, which is essentially an amalgam of bills that passed in some form in 2015 only to languish as lawmakers left Austin. This time the bills have bipartisan support in the upper chamber and the blessing of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who controls the Senate. And 20 senators have co-signed as authors on the bill, Taylor said.

Conspicuously missing from the package, however, is a crackdown on the use of dark money, undisclosed millions being raised and spent by committees in support of candidates and issues.

Patrick eschewed a deeper discussion about dark money, saying, "You do have a right to support various groups, and you do not have to be disclosed. That issue continues to be discussed."

The ethics package includes:

· Revoking pensions for elected officials who are convicted of certain crimes "committed while in office and arising directly from the official duties of that elected office."

· Requiring a state elected official convicted of a felony, whose appeals have been exhausted, to vacate his or her seat. Currently, elected officials convicted of such felonies are restricted from running for another office or term, but the law doesn't expressly expel them without an impeachment process.

· Increasing financial disclosure requirements for lawmakers to include local contracts they hold for goods and services totaling $10,000 or more in a year.

· Requiring officials to disclose if their spouses, children or business entities, who own majority interest in a company, have such contracts with a local government.

· Lowering the dollar threshold for when lobbyists must report paying for meals or transportation for officials.

· Adding meals and transportation for officials' immediate family to those lobbyist activity reports.

· Requiring lobbyists to report to the Texas Ethics Commission the total bill amount for expenses paid on behalf of elected officials or their family. This closes a loophole that lobbyists have exploited: splitting large bar and restaurant tabs, for instance, among several lobbyists to avoid reporting thresholds.

· Restricting former lawmakers from immediately returning to the Capitol as paid lobbyists by making them wait a full legislative cycle, two years, before they can register as a lobbyist.

· Creates a criminal penalty, a Class A misdemeanor, if former lawmakers engage in lobbying activity before that period ends.

"Together, these represent the single greatest ethics reform in a generation," Taylor said.

Asked about specific scenarios, he said, "My focus is not any individual case."

As with any bill there are nuances to be fleshed out, and language is likely to change. But as the bill reads now, if Attorney General Ken Paxton, indicted on securities fraud charges, is convicted, he would probably keep his pension. That's because the Republican's fraud allegations don't stem from his official duties as attorney general or, previously, state senator.

However, Rep. Dawnna Dukes, an Austin Democrat, is facing charges that she misused public funds and campaign cash for personal gain. If she is convicted and all her appeals are exhausted, she would probably lose her pension.